Party Walls

 

The construction industry has been increasingly focused on meeting ever-tightening codes and achieving higher ratings in sustainability certification programs (e.g., LEED, Passive House, etc.). These standards do a good job of raising the bar, but there is a new bar in town and we’re not talking about whiskey.

Local Law 97

NYC’s Local Law 97 of 2019 establishes carbon emissions limits for buildings 25,000 square feet and larger. These emissions limits, which are based on current building performance data, will begin in 2024 and will rachet down in 2030 and beyond. While we continue to work with building owners and portfolio managers of existing buildings (“What Does the Climate Mobilization Act Mean for Building Owners?”), we need to make sure that new buildings and major renovations are set up for success. Developers, designers, and construction teams must take LL97 into account during design, construction and turnover to protect the value of these new assets.

A developer or asset manager’s least favorite word is probably uncertainty, and now there’s a whole new host of uncertainties to think about:

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Heat Pump Water Heaters in Multifamily Buildings

In Electrify Everything? Part 1 that I wrote several months ago, I mentioned that integrated tank heat pump water heaters (HPWHs) can work well in single family homes — even in colder climates. For example, we see quite a few installed successfully in basements in the Northeast. These devices remove heat from the surrounding air, so there needs to be enough heat in the basement air for them to work effectively. During the winter, a home’s space heating system probably needs to work harder to make up for the HPWH. In the summer, the HPWH provides a bit of extra cooling and dehumidification. We put together some guidelines a few years ago on how to get the most from these systems in single family homes.

Some places where I’ve seen problems:

•   Installing a HPWH in a basement closet. Even if a closet has louvered doors, there’s not enough heat/air for a HPWH to work well.
• HPWHs are relatively loud. If there’s a finished part of the basement (e.g., bedroom or office), the noise can be disruptive.
• Sometimes there is trivial heat gain to the basement (from outdoors, mechanical equipment, etc.). When a HPWH removes heat from the air, such a basement can quickly become too cold for the water heater to work efficiently (and too cold for comfort if someone uses the basement).

But overall, HPWHs in single family basements can work effectively.

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If you are a parent like me, I am sure you cherish your kids and seek to offer them the best opportunities in life. I even moved to a different school district. And, while the education is top-notch in my town, I have come to realize that it really doesn’t matter what school district you are in…all our schools need help. I am not talking about smaller class sizes, better pay for teachers, after-school programs, and more school supplies, although those are important. School buildings need attention. With budgetary pressures, a lot of maintenance and repairs are being deferred and schools are not aging well. Whether it is repairing existing systems, replacing systems at the end of their useful life, renovating, or building a brand-new school to service your community for future generations, advocate for your Board of Education (BoE) to think holistically about improving the conditions for our children.

Why My Call to Action?

This year I was asked to join our elementary school’s Tools for Schools committee, which is tasked with implementing an indoor air quality (IAQ) management plan. This experience gave me an opportunity to get involved and provided me insight into the school’s systems and the operations and maintenance (O&M) processes that were in place.

Unfortunately, at the start of the 2018 school year, mold issues were identified in our local middle school and the building was closed. In fairness, I quickly realized that buildings were outside the BoE members’ knowledge base. Afterall, they are educators, not facility managers or building scientists. They sought outside consultants but didn’t know the right questions to ask. After some time, the BoE decided to get input from local experts in the community. Fortunately, we have several experts (including me) who were willing to volunteer their time. As part of a task force, we laid out a strategy to remediate the mold issues in the school and to implement short- and long-term repairs to minimize/eliminate water incursion and elevated moisture issues within the building.

I am not saying you must get involved at this level, but I do encourage you to attend a BoE meeting and start asking questions related to IAQ. Ask if the school has deferred maintenance needs and if/when these are being addressed in the annual budget. Ask when (if) comprehensive physical needs assessments and energy audits were performed on all school buildings. Educate yourselves; then help educate your BoE and your community on IAQ guidelines for schools. Here are some great resources:

• EPA’s Indoor Air Quality Guidelines for School Building Upgrades
• Operations & Maintenance Tools from the New York City Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS) Division of Energy Management (DEM)
• EPA’s Indoor Air Quality Master Class Professional Training Webinar Series
• ASHRAE’s Advanced Energy Design Guide for K-12 School Buildings
• EPA’s School IAQ Assessment Mobile App
• USGBC’s The Center for Green Schools
• NIOSH’s Dampness and Mold Assessment Tool – School Buildings

How Can SWA Help?

In working with schools, I have learned that one of the greatest challenges school decision-makers face is not knowing where to turn for support and guidance. Steven Winter Associates, Inc. (SWA) has been working to improve educational facilities for decades. Whether you have questions related to mold, moisture, comfort, absenteeism, accessibility, high utility bills…on up to zero energy design and progressive learning environments, SWA can support you. Here is just a sample of past school projects that SWA has worked on:

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Letter grades are coming!

NYC’s building owners and real estate management firms now have one more thing on their plate to consider: Local Law 33 of 2018. LL33 compliance will assign letter grades to buildings required to benchmark energy and water consumption. The energy efficiency score will relate to the Energy Star Rating earned using the U.S. EPA Energy Star Portfolio Manager (PM). The law will come into effect on January 1, 2020, and will utilize the previous year energy data to set the energy efficiency score and letter grade as follows:

A – score is equal to or greater than 85;
B – score is equal to or greater than 70 but less than 85;
C – score is equal to or greater than 55 but less than 70;
D – score is less than 55;
F – for buildings that fail to submit required benchmarking information;
N – for buildings exempted from benchmarking or not covered by the Energy Star program.

Why is my letter grade lower than expected?

Property owners should be made aware that if their property earned an energy efficiency score of 75 for the 2018 Benchmarking filing, the new score for the 2019 benchmarking filing may have fallen as much as 20 points. In LL33 terms, what could have been a letter grade “B” could now be “C” or “D” based on PM updates implemented in August 2018. Property owners will want to learn how the Energy Star PM update will affect their LL33 letter grade.

To understand the correlation and impact that the August 26, 2018 Energy Star PM update will have, it is important to look back at what took place as part of that update. (more…)

Following up on our blog post in August 2018 – Just Your Typical Blower Door Test… in Sri Lanka – Star Garment Innovation Center – we have exciting news coming out of Sri Lanka. The Star Garments Innovation Center is now officially certified as a Pilot EnerPHit building, the building retrofit standard under the Passive House Institute (PHI).

EnerPHit certification for this project is a milestone achievement on many levels. The Innovation Center is now the first certified Passive House in Southeast Asia and one of only a handful of certified PH projects in tropical climates. PHI deemed the project “a milestone in industrial energy efficient retrofitting in a tropical monsoon climate.” Many of the passive measures employed at the Innovation Center, including continuous exterior insulation, highly efficienct windows, variable refrigerant flow heat pumps for cooling with wrap around heat pipe for enhanced dehumidification capacity, and balanced ventilation with heat recovery can be utilized across all future construction projects in tropical climates. The Passive House team here at SWA is excited to see the potential growth in tropical-climate Passive House construction as a result of the Innovation Center’s success.

But what good is certification if the building doesn’t perform as well as the energy model predicts? Well, we have exciting news on this front too!

At the very start of SWA’s involvement in the project back in the summer of 2016, SWA conducted a utility analysis of the base building prior to any renovations to predict and later verify the energy savings of the Innovation Center by designing to the PH standard. Once the energy model was developed, SWA predicted approximately 50% in energy savings when compared to the previous building’s energy bills.

Fast forward to Fall of 2018 and the building has now been occupied for a full year. The two inevitable questions are:

1. How much energy is the Innovation Center saving as compared to the previous building?
2. How does the modeled energy use for the Innovation Center compare to what it is actually using after a full year of occupancy?

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Before there was a Green New Deal in New York City, there was Local Law 87, which requires an energy audit and retro-commissioning report to be conducted and filed every 10 years. Yes, it still applies, and yes it will help you to understand the most cost-effective retrofits and upgrades to target for compliance with the city’s new energy efficiency requirements. Thanks for asking!

The question we get most this time of year from owners in NYC is, “My building is due for LL87 compliance this year, is it too late to start?!”

As spring arrives, building owners often realize that time is quickly running out and this is the year that they must submit their building. Compliance with NYC’s LL87 (Local Law 87) can be overwhelming and hard to navigate but we are here to help.

Not sure if you have to file?  Check here.

LL87 requires that a building undergo an energy audit and retro-commissioning of major mechanical equipment. Keep in mind that it takes time to perform the inspections and testing. In fact, your best bet is to start in the year before your deadline, leaving yourself plenty of time for planning, budgeting, and implementing any corrections that may be required.

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On April 18th, Introduction 1253-2018 was approved by the New York City Council along with several other major pieces of legislation as part of a Climate Mobilization Act. The Urban Green Council describes it as “arguably the most disruptive in our lifetime of the NYC real estate industry.” We agree. While it will take some time to more precisely gauge impact across the industry, here is an initial primer.

Update: On May 18^th Intro 1253 was passed into law as Local Law 97 of 2019.

Context

Previous building energy legislation in NYC has focused primarily on providing the market with access to information in the form of benchmarking and audits. In response to increasing demands for more urgent climate action, this new local law will actually require energy performance levels – and significant retrofits in some cases – in most existing buildings over 25,000 square feet between now and 2030 and deeper reductions beyond 2030.

How Does Local Law 97 Work?

The law establishes targets for carbon-emissions intensity per square foot for buildings based on occupancy class. For instance, multifamily buildings, office buildings, schools, and storage facilities will have different intensity targets. Mixed-use buildings will have their targets set based on a weighted average of their different spaces. Across all segments, these targets will get ratcheted down over time. Building on the type of data submitted as part of annual benchmarking, all tenant and owner energy used at a particular building will be converted to carbon intensity per square foot.

Starting in 2024, buildings will be fined on an annual basis for carbon footprint that exceeds their targets. Based on their performance today, approximately 20% of buildings exceed the 2024 – 2029 targets while approximately 75% of buildings exceed the 2030 – 2034 targets, according to the City Council’s press release. As an alternative to this performance-based framework, rent regulated multifamily buildings with at least one rent stabilized apartment will be required to implement a prescriptive list of upgrades by 2024. These upgrades include indoor temperature sensors providing feedback to boilers and apartment thermostatic controls.

What Will It Mean to the Market?

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The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), viewed as the most credible source of climate change research, issued an alarming report on October 2018 removing all doubt – absent aggressive action the atmosphere will warm up by as much as 2.7 ° F above preindustrial levels by 2040, inundating coastlines and intensifying droughts and poverty. The significance of this report is that the effects of climate change will occur in our lifetime.

The building construction sector has a critical role in drawing down carbon emissions by 2040. As nations all over the globe tackle operational emissions from buildings, we must now address our total emissions impact.

 

Life-cycle emissions resulting from buildings consist of two components: operational and embodied. A great deal of effort has been put into reducing the former as it is assumed to be higher than the latter. Studies have revealed the growing significance of embodied emissions in buildings, but its importance is often underestimated in energy efficiency decisions.

According to the Embodied Carbon Review 2018 by Bionova Inc, embodied carbon is the total impact of all the greenhouse gases emitted by the construction and materials of our built environment. Furthermore, during their life-cycle, the same products also cause carbon impacts when maintained, repaired, or disposed of.

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Water monitoring can quickly become a building owner’s best friend. The high cost of water bills can often overshadow the cost of fuel and electricity bills, but ownership and management often believe that the price of their water bill is simply something to deal with. Many building owners pay the water bill for the entire building directly to their local utility without being aware of what’s going on inside their building or what they’re actually paying for. After all, without water monitoring, how would they know?

Water monitoring can impact an owner’s bottom line due to the high costs of leaks, which are more pervasive than you’d think.

Types of Leaks

While any water fixture can contribute to leaks and high water bills, toilets are typically the worst offenders. In toilets, rubber flappers can wear out, a flapper connected to the flush handle can have an incorrectly sized chain interfering with the seal, float mechanisms on the flush valve can be set too high causing the water level to go just above the overflow tube, or there can be tenant tampering.

Showers and sinks can also start leaking at any time. While typically at much lower capacities, these leaks can actually be easier to detect. By monitoring the water consumption in a building and observing hourly usage overnight, you can identify patterns that can quickly indicate a leak, eliminating the need to visually inspect all water fixtures in a building to determine the cause.

Cost of Leaks

The idea that a single leak can last for an entire year may seem unreasonable, though the sad truth is many leaks can go undetected and/or unreported. To put water leaks into perspective, the chart below from the NYC DEP details the potential extent of leaks and their costs on a daily and yearly basis:

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Most of us are familiar with the feeling of a humid apartment after taking a hot shower. Some of us kick on an exhaust fan, perhaps un-fog the bathroom mirror, or even open a window to get the moisture out. Domestic moisture generation—moisture from human activity—is a major factor driving the humidity levels in our residential buildings, especially in super air-tight, Passive House construction. Before diving into just how much of an impact domestic moisture has in our buildings, let’s first look at average daily moisture generation rates of a typical family of three[1]:

• breathing and transpiration—6 to 9 pounds of water vapor/day;
• 10-minute shower in the morning for each individual—3.6 pounds of water vapor;
• cooking fried eggs and bacon for breakfast—0.5 pounds of water vapor;
• cooking steamed vegetables with pasta for dinner—0.5 to 1.0 pounds of water vapor; and
• one small dog and a few plants around the house—0.5 pounds of water vapor/day

This brings the daily total to 11.1 to 14.6 pounds of moisture generation per day, or about 1.5 gallons of liquid water.

Where does all of this moisture go? In a typical code-level apartment building with moderate to high-levels of air leakage, water vapor has two year-round exit pathways: exfiltration through the façade and dedicated kitchen or bathroom mechanical exhaust. Additionally, in the summer, moisture is removed via condensate from the cooling system.

Let’s now put this in the context of a highly energy-efficient apartment with very low levels of air leakage (about 5 to 10 times less than the code-compliant unit), and balanced ventilation with energy recovery. The first means of moisture removal, façade exfiltration, is virtually non-existent given the building’s superior air-tight design. Next is mechanical exhaust ventilation in the kitchens and bathrooms. Because the unit has balanced ventilation and energy recovery, the exhaust air stream in a Passive House project typically passes through the energy recovery core. Depending on the core selection, a large percentage of the interior moisture may be retained in the apartment air despite the constant mechanical air exchange.

There are two basic types of cores:

• Heat recovery ventilator (HRV) in which a certain percentage of sensible heat is recovered (transferred from the exhaust air stream to the supply air stream) while no moisture is recovered.
• Energy recovery ventilator (ERV) in which a certain percentage of sensible heat and a certain percentage of moisture in the air is recovered.

To fully understand this issue, Figure 1 breaks break down the moisture-related pros and cons of ERVs and HRVs in the context of a high-density, Passive House building.

	ERV	HRV
Pros	Summer – prevents high exterior air moisture load from being supplied to interior air; cooling loads are minimized	Winter – flushes high internal moisture load out of building; humidity levels reduced
Cons	Winter – if internal moisture generation is high, interior moisture load is not flushed out of apartment; humidity levels increase	Summer – allows exterior air moisture load to be supplied to interior air: cooling loads increase

Figure 1. Moisture related pros and cons with ERVs and HRVs in high efficiency, airtight construction

 

Traditionally, the key factor in deciding between an ERV or HRV for a high-efficiency building has been the project’s climate. However, as internal moisture loads begin to exceed exterior moisture loads in high-density projects, the decision between ERV or HRV must be looked at more closely for each project regardless of climate.

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